Cohousing Groups

Earthsong Eco-Neighbourhood: New Zealand already has a successful co-housing development. Earthsong is a 32 home cohousing neighbourhood set on 1.29 hectares in the suburb of Ranui in Waitakere City, Auckland, and has a wealth of materials on its website: www.earthsong.org.nz

LILAC, Leeds, UK: LILAC stands for Low-Impact Living Affordable Community and is perhaps the first development in the world to achieve affordable, low-impact, co-housing. Uses innovative modular straw-bale panel construction. www.lilac.coop (See also TEDx talk)

‘It’s like a mini Centre Parcs!’, The Guardian, 1 May 2010 – ‘Imagine a community where you like your neighbours. You share meals and your children grow up together… ‘Chuck says that growing up in cohousing has been wonderful for their daughter, Jessie, now 18. “She’s so sociable, so able to deal with a wide range of people because she’s been raised in a community.” There are intergenerational benefits, too: “You know your children can run around without being in danger, because other people will look out for them, and you know the 85-year-old will be checked up on rather than left on her own all day.”‘